Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

Matty Moroun photo by Jason Kryk, The Windsor Star

Seems like I can’t turn on the TV these days without being exposed to Matty Moroun’s disgusting, misleading, offensive commercials.

I wrote back in June, in “Matty Moroun’s Miserable Machinations,” about the Grosse Pointe billionaire and his family spending more than $1.5 million to lobby lawmakers and ensure that the Ambassador Bridge, which they own, remains the only connection between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario.

In fact he's spent close to $5 million on the television ads, which exaggerate, spin, attack, lie and pander to the lowest common denominator. On October 4, the Detroit Free Press pointed out, "Like the worst political attack ads, the anti-bridge commercials offer a smidgen of fact overlaid with a deep pile of exaggeration and distortion. In the latest one, the only true statement is about the roads being in bad shape. The ad even misspells the name of Gov. Rick Snyder, Moroun's nemesis who backs the government-owned New International Trade Crossing project."

The second span – which would be publicly owned but privately financed, built and managed – is also supported by the Michigan Chamber of Commerce and other business and labor groups. And get this: Canada has even offered to front $550 million to pay Michigan's share of the project costs.

So the unscrupulous guy who wants to maintain his monopoly on the Detroit-Windsor border crossing – more than a quarter of all trade between the U.S. and Canada crosses his bridge – has polluted the airwaves with his specious claim that a second bridge is a boondoggle that would cost taxpayers $100 million a year for something that’s not needed.

Gee, I wonder if the fact that Moroun rakes in $60 million a year in toll revenues and millions more from the sale of duty free gas and goods at his bridge has anything to do with his opposition to this “boondoggle.”

According to Michigan Radio, the Senate’s Economic Development Committee might vote this week on legislation relating to a second bridge. It’s unclear whether the legislation will even make it out of committee, though; the committee’s dominated by Republicans and Republicans generally oppose a second span.

What is clear is that building a second bridge at no cost to taxpayers is a good idea. It’s clear that one rich dude is dropping some serious cash to lobby politicians and mislead everybody with irresponsible, over-the-top TV commercials because a second bridge threatens his fiefdom.

And it’s clear that in today’s political climate, he’ll probably get what he’s paying for.

AP file photo

Sources: Michigan Radio, Michigan Campaign Finance Network, Detroit Free Press, Windsor Star.